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Vatican City, May 27, 2025 / 12:48 pm (CNA).

The official website of the Vatican for the first time has been refreshed since it was created in the 1990s, prominently featuring multimedia content and online links to other Vatican offices and ministries.

A banner image of a waving Pope Leo XIV against a simple light blue background can now be found spread across the top half of the revamped Holy See website’s homepage published earlier this week. 

Replacing the outdated dropdown mega menus found in the older version of the Holy See’s homepage is a large, clickable “Magisterium” button — which also features a small icon of the pontiff’s new coat of arms — to help online visitors find the pope’s prepared homilies and speeches and additional information about the Vatican.

Acquiring tickets for papal audiences and liturgical celebrations has also been made easier through the updated website. Earlier this year, the Prefecture of the Papal Household — which is one of four Vatican offices featured on vatican.va — launched its new website with digital registration forms for individuals and pilgrim groups wanting to see the pope. 

The other three Vatican ministries featured on the updated website are the Church’s charitable organization Peter’s Pence, the Pope’s Worldwide Prayer Network, and the yearlong 2025 Jubilee Year of Hope.  

Daily news and calendar events related to Pope Leo XIV and the Vatican can also be viewed on the updated homepage in nine languages: Arabic, English, Chinese, French, German, Italian, Latin, Portuguese, and Spanish. 

Additional information and Church documents that can be accessed from the new homepage include the Bible, the Catechism of the Catholic Church, codes of canon law, ecumenical councils, Catholic social teaching, and reports on the Church’s response to the abuse of minors.

The Lecceto hermitage near Siena, Italy. / Credit: LigaDue, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

ACI Stampa, May 27, 2025 / 12:18 pm (CNA).

Sister Sara Maria of the Augustinian nuns of Lecceto speaks about the activities of the monastery in the province of Siena and the nuns’ relationship with Leo XIV.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, Kirby Hoberg noticed that her pastor began to give, in her words, “a lot of strange homilies.” These included “homilies that suggested that racism wasn’t real, that the pandemic wasn’t real, that viruses weren’t real.” In short, “a lot of fairly concerning things to have preached.”  Having moved to Minnesota with […]

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On May 7, 2025, the mendicant friar Father Cardinal Robert Francis Prevost, son of Louis Marius Prevost and Mildred Agnes Martinez, became Pope Leo XIV.  As the news traveled, a flood of memories stirred in my heart. In the early 1980s, we were students at the Catholic Theological Union in Chicago (CTU). He was in […]

The post Reflections on Pope Leo from the Franciscan tradition appeared first on U.S. Catholic.

Readings (Year C): Acts 1:1 – 11Psalm 47:2 – 3, 6 – 7, 8 – 9Ephesians 1:17 – 23Luke 24:46 – 53 Reflection: The intrinsic goodness of human bodies I’ve long said that Catholic theology offers endless possibilities for a healing, helpful, affirming theology of bodies. Between embodied ritual and liturgy in the Mass, divine […]

The post A reflection for the Feast of the Ascension appeared first on U.S. Catholic.

VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Pope Leo XIV has advanced the sainthood causes of two missionaries whose murders in the Amazon jungle in Ecuador led to the protection of remote Indigenous peoples from encroaching extractive industries.

Among a series of decrees published by the Vatican May 22, Pope Leo recognized the sacrifice of Spanish Bishop Alejandro Labaka Ugarte of the Apostolic Vicariate of Aguarico, Ecuador, and Colombian Sister Inés Arango Velásquez, a member of the Capuchin Tertiary Sisters of the Holy Family, as an "offering of life," a category distinct from martyrdom that Pope Francis established in 2017.

The category and its requirements for sainthood are explained in the apostolic letter, "Maiorem hac Dilectionem," which established a category of heroically offering one's life out of loving service to others. The recognition brings the two missionaries closer to beatification, pending verification of a miracle attributed to each one's intercession.

Bishop Labaka was born in a remote village in Spain April 19, 1920, and joined the Capuchins in 1937 after he was conscripted to fight the Spanish Civil War. He was ordained in 1945 at the age of 25.

He possessed a strong missionary spirit and went to China with three other companions in 1947. However, the communist regime expelled all religious orders, including the Capuchins, in 1953. 

He then went to Ecuador where he ministered for 33 years, particularly to Indigenous peoples in the Amazon forest.

After he was named prefect of Aguarico in 1965, he was invited to participate in the final session of the Second Vatican Council where he was particularly moved by its decree, "Ad gentes," which emphasized the church's missionary activity and the expression of the "seeds of the Word," referring to the truth of the Gospel and grace being present throughout human cultures.

He resigned as prefect in 1970 in order to dedicate himself completely to working with Indigenous communities, particularly the Huaorani, "to discover with them the seeds of the Word, hidden in their culture and in their life; and by which God has shown his infinite love to the Huaorani people, giving them a chance of salvation in Christ," he wrote in his diary.

He still maintained close ties to remote communities even after St. John Paul II named him to be the first bishop of the apostolic vicariate of Aguarico in 1984. He found himself increasingly trying to be a mediator between the government and petroleum companies, and the Indigenous peoples living where vast oil reserves were being discovered, in an effort to prevent violence and protect their rights, lives and cultures.

Oil workers sometimes faced violent attacks as they encroached on remote territories inhabited by the Tagaeri in 1987, which in turn provoked armed attacks by mercenaries protecting the interests of the oil companies. 

Fearing the Tagaeri were going to be exterminated, Bishop Labaka and Sister Arango took an oil-company-owned helicopter and dropped down by rope to try to see if the people could relocate and avoid being slaughtered. They knew the risk, but felt "if we don't go there, they (mercenaries) will kill them," the bishop had said.

The next day, workers found their two bodies pierced by spears and arrows. After their deaths July 21, the government ordered all extractive activity to stop in areas inhabited by the Huaorani and Tagaeri peoples.

Eventually, the government defined and established a protected "Tagaeri Taromenane Intangible Zone" in 1999 to protect remote communities from extractive activities. 

Sister Arango was born April 6, 1937, in Medellín, Colombia, and spent 20 years teaching before she became a missionary and joined the Capuchin mission in Aguarico in 1977. She worked in a hospital and evangelized different Indigenous communities under the guidance of then-Father Lubaka. She was assigned to share the Gospel with the Huaorani people in 1987.

During Pope Leo's meeting May 22 with Cardinal Marcello Semeraro, prefect of the Dicastery for the Causes of Saints, the pope also signed a decree advancing the sainthood cause of Bishop Matthew Makil, the first native apostolic vicar of Kottayam of the Syro-Malabar Catholic Church in India. Born March 27, 1851, he promoted the catechism, education in Catholic schools and the establishment of religious congregations and pious associations. He died Jan. 26, 1914.

Casamari Abbey in Italy. / Credit: D. Ermacora

Rome, Italy, May 26, 2025 / 06:00 am (CNA).

The monastery of Casamari in Italy was built in the 11th century on the foundations of a temple dedicated to Ceres, the Greek goddess of the earth, fertility, and harvests.

VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Meeting his former colleagues and co-workers and acknowledging how many of them spent many more years working at the Vatican than he did, Pope Leo XIV underlined the important role Vatican employees play in his ministry.

"Popes pass away, but the Curia remains," he said May 24.

When the laughter and applause died down, Pope Leo explained that he was serious. In a diocese or at the Vatican, the chancery or Curia "is the institution that preserves and transmits the historic memory of a church, of the ministry of its bishops."

"This is very important," he told officials and employees of the Roman Curia, Vatican City State and the Vicariate of Rome. "Memory is an essential element in a living organism. It is not only turned toward the past, but it nourishes the present and guides the future. Without memory, the journey is lost, it loses its sense of direction." 

Pope Leo XIV was welcomed to the Vatican audience hall with an ovation that went so long that he jokingly warned the employees and their family members that if the applause lasted longer than the remarks he had prepared, he would have to add to his speech.

In the end, he spent as much time shaking hands, blessing babies and rosaries and chatting with children who offered him drawings as he did reading his text.

The Italian news agency ANSA reported May 23 that Pope Leo also approved the traditional employee bonus for the beginning of a new pontificate. The agency said each employee received 500 euros (about $570).

In the days since his election May 8, the pope has been meeting with the prefects and other heads of Vatican offices. The day after his election he temporarily reappointed all the top Vatican officials; the Vatican press office said that he "wishes to set aside some time for reflection, prayer and dialogue before any final appointment or confirmation is made."

"As you know," Pope Leo told the gathering May 24, "I arrived only two years ago, when our beloved Pope Francis appointed me prefect of the Dicastery for Bishops. So, I left the Diocese of Chiclayo, Peru, and came to work here. What a change!" 

"And now -- what can I say? Only what Simon Peter said to Jesus on Lake Tiberias: 'Lord, you know everything, you know that I love you,'" he said.

Pope Leo also strongly reaffirmed Pope Francis' reorganization of the Roman Curia with an emphasis on the offices being missionary and supporting the missionary activity of every bishop, diocese and Catholic in the world.

"As I think you know, the mission experience is part of my life, and not only as a baptized person, as for all of us Christians, but because as an Augustinian religious I was a missionary in Peru," he said, "and in the midst of the Peruvian people my pastoral vocation matured. I cannot thank the Lord enough for this gift." 

"Then, the call to serve the church here in the Roman Curia has been a new mission, which I have shared with you these past two years," he said. "I am still continuing and will continue it, as long as God wills, in this service that has been entrusted to me."

"Together, we must look for ways to be a missionary church, a church that builds bridges and encourages dialogue, a church ever-open to welcoming ... with open arms, all those who are in need of our charity, our presence, our readiness to dialogue and our love," he said, quoting his first speech to the public the evening of his election.

Vatican employees, he said, are called to support him and the entire church in the mission of "being at the service of communion and unity in charity and truth."
 

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National Catholic Register, May 26, 2025 / 04:00 am (CNA).

Memorial Day marks the cultural beginning of summer in the United States, and in the midst of all the fun of the three-day weekend, it’s easy for kids to think of this holiday as representing nothing more than the end of school and the beginning of barbecue and pool party season. Here are some ideas that gently introduce children to the deeper meaning of Memorial Day.

1. Create a memorial flower boat.

This is an easy but beautiful craft that uses materials that you probably have lying around the house. Though it is based on the Navy’s tradition of floating flowers out into the ocean to recall sailors whose lives were lost at sea, it could be used to honor fallen soldiers from any branch of the military.

2. Write a letter to a soldier.

Talk to your children about what our men and women in uniform do for our country, then have them write a letter or draw a picture to send to someone who is currently in the military.

3. Take flowers to a veterans cemetery.

Check online to see if there’s a veteran’s cemetery near you. If there is, consider stopping by with a bouquet of flowers on your way to your Memorial Day plans.

4. Make a pin for a veteran you know.

If you have a friend or family member who is a veteran, have the kids make one of these pretty pins to honor the service he or she provided to our country. This is a good opportunity to talk about where this person served, why he or she was there, and to mention the fact that some of this person’s fellow soldiers were not so fortunate as to make it back home to their families.

5. Make an American flag cake.

You won’t have any problem convincing your kids to help make this Memorial Day cake that is as delicious as it is easy to put together. Working together in the kitchen is always a great opportunity for family bonding moments, and in the process of icing the cake and laying out the flag pattern, chat with your kids about what the American flag represents and all the people who have given their lives to defend it.

6. Say a prayer for the souls of departed soldiers.

The easiest suggestion of all: Simply take a few moments today and have your family pause to say a prayer for the repose of the souls of all the men and women who gave their lives in the service of our country.

This story was first published by the National Catholic Register, CNA’s sister news partner, on May 30, 2011, and has been updated and adapted by CNA.

Pope Leo XIV prays at St. Mary Major, May 25, 2025. / Credit: Daniel Ibañez/EWTN News/Vatican Pool

ACI Prensa Staff, May 25, 2025 / 14:19 pm (CNA).

Pope Leo XIV prayed at the Basilica of St. Mary Major following the Mass where he took possession of the Basilica of St. John Lateran as bishop of Rome.